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Dark Souls 2 Diary – From Software Did Not Make the Game Easier

There's a little more accessibility for those new to the series

Mar 13, 2014 02:16 GMT  ·  By
Dark attack
   Dark attack

I am a newcomer to Dark Souls 2 and I desperately wanted for the development team at From Software to actually make the adventure action title easier, despite the fact that the team strenuously maintained before launch that the experience would be as punishing as ever.

I found this out rather quickly, as I died more than 10 times in one hour, but as I pressed on I found out one way that the team had tweaked the core mechanics in such a way that there’s a slight decrease in difficulty.

In Dark Souls 2, resting at a bonfire or dying makes all the enemies previously destroyed reappear in the same locations, ready to trouble the player once more, which are the exact mechanics as in the first title in the series.

In the best of situations this means that players have to once more take them out, presumably more efficiently than last time, before reaching their goal, most of the time one of the major boss fights.

At the worst of times gamers have to get through enemies again while also having to worry about managing to avoid death at least until the moment they get their lost souls back, which can be hard to do when health is constantly declining with each defeat.

But in Dark Souls 2 enemies are set to disappear from the game world after a set number of respawns, clearing a patch from the bonfire to the final target of the player.

For a newcomer like me, this can be a great idea, because even if I fail repeatedly, I can count on the fact that at one point I will no longer have to worry about the masses of normal enemies.

Yes, I still have to deal with the bosses, but at least I have accomplished something in Dark Souls 2.

Longtime fans might see the new mechanics as a betrayal of the original concept of the game, but they are actually the smallest of possible changes designed to increase accessibility for the title.

From Software has also introduced a simpler to use fast travel system and a set of tutorials that can offer basic info on the title before gamers jump into its unforgiving world.

For me, Dark Souls 2 is one of the most difficult titles I have ever played and certainly the toughest title I have experienced in the last few years.